Press Dossier
Season 2023-2024
Press release 13.06.2023
Agenda
Sponsors and Partners
Boris Charmatz presents the Season 2023-2024
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch + Terrain Boris Charmatz
By Marietta Piekenbrock
Liberté Cathédrale
Boris Charmatz - Creation September 2023, Mariendom Neviges
Club Amour
Conception Boris Charmatz
CV Boris Charmatz, Intendant
CV Dr. Daniel Siekhaus, Geschäftsführer
Contact press
Ursula Popp
Press, Public Relations and Marketing Officer
00 49 (0)202 563 6720
00 49 (0)172 882 3718
Press release
13.06.2023
Press conference: Announcing the 2023/2024 season
Boris Charmatz, the artistic director of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, today presented the programme for the upcoming 2023/2024 season. Also present were Matthias Nocke, the City of Wuppertal’s head of cultural affairs; Dr. Rolf-Jürgen Köster, chair of the supervisory board of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch GmbH; Daniel Siekhaus, the Tanztheater’s incoming managing director (starting in August 2023); and Roger Christmann, the current managing director (until August 2023).
Head of cultural affairs Matthias Nocke welcomed the assembled journalists and spoke about the importance of the work of Boris Charmatz for the “dance city” Wuppertal and the “dance state” North Rhine-Westphalia:
“The magnificent multi-day project WUNDERTAL in May 2023 represented a departure for the ensemble of Tanztheater Wuppertal, and the start of its collaboration with Boris Charmatz’ French organisation Terrain, the Pina Bausch Centre and the Pina Bausch Foundation.
For me, Wundertal/Sonnborner Straße means that the ensemble is becoming more anchored in the city and is focusing much more intensively on participatory projects that are open to all! Inviting amateurs and professionals of all ages and from different cultural contexts – indoors and outdoors. I am very happy about the project’s successful launch and the fantastic response from the public and press. Boris Charmatz is energising the city and is offering a completely new perspective on what the new Pina Bausch Zentrum could be. I am very excited about future projects.”
Preview of the new season
After the transitional 2022/2023 season, the 2023/2024 season is the first to be developed entirely by Boris Charmatz, with new formats that connect the ensemble’s artistic legacy with Boris Charmatz’ existing repertoire, as well as new creations under his artistic direction. The 2023/2024 season is also the first of three seasons celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch.
“50 years! There will be extensive celebrations to mark this event – in our own way!”, says Boris Charmatz. “The candles will be blown out very slowly, but with a lot of emotion.”
And from 13.06.2023, the Tanztheater Wuppertal will reinvent itself with a new website and corporate identity associating Terrain Boris Charmatz, developed by the Berlin agency Mor-design and programmed by Convoy Interactive, Hamburg.
Liberté Cathédrale (premiere 08.09.2023)
In September, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch and Terrain present the first new creation by Boris Charmatz at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Neviges. Liberté Cathédrale is a piece in five parts: Opus – Bellringing – Touching – For Whom the Bell Tolls – Silence. It features a piece for organ by Phill Niblock, bells, singing, moments of silence and great intimacy, bursts of movement and sculptural images of bodies and movements. It is both sacred and profane.
Boris Charmatz: “We listen to the silence in the church and the sounds of the organ, we enter into trance when we hear the ringing of bells from all over Europe, we sing Beethoven, we hold our breath and we are united in one breath. I believe that the staging of this piece on the raw concrete floor of St. Mary’s Cathedral will create a very special resonance.”
Liberté Cathédrale, although originally conceived for a church, can take place anywhere: in theatres or opera houses, in industrial spaces or outdoors. During the season 2023-2014 it will be shown at the Biennale de la Danse in Lyon, followed by performances at the Opéra de Lille and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, in collaboration with the Théâtre de la Ville. Additional performances are planned for the following season.
Club Amour
Boris Charmatz is developing a three-part evening entitled Club Amour, which is due to premiere in November 2023. It will feature Café Müller by Pina Bausch together with two of his own choreographies, Aatt enen tionon and herses, duo. All three pieces touch on themes of desire, sexuality, nudity, intimacy, longing and failure. Club Amour will also be presented at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele in March 2024 and then in Amiens and Valenciennes.
Restagings and touring
Nelken (Carnations), which was last performed in Charleroi in 2019, und Viktor, last performed in London in 2018, will be restaged in Wuppertal. The ensemble will also tour to Istanbul with Café Müller, to Mulhouse with Vollmond, to Paris with ´Sweet Mambo` and to London and Luxembourg with Nelken (Carnations).
Further tour dates for pieces by Boris Charmatz include Metz, Rome, New York, Saint-Omer, Brive-Tulle, Paris, Poitiers, Luxembourg and Strasbourg. The following pieces will be shown: SOMNOLE, étrangler le temps + boléro 2 and 10000 gestes.
Deepening the Franco-German relationship
Continuing the Franco-German collaboration and reflecting cultural, social and economic developments in both countries is of big concern to Boris Charmatz.
The two complementary structures Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch and Terrain (Hauts-de-France), experienced in large-scale choreographic happenings such as Wundertal/Sonnborner Straße, closely work together under the artistic direction of Boris Charmatz, developing new projects and exploring new terrain.
Daniel Siekhaus, currently the managing director of the Wuppertaler Bühnen, will become the managing director of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch GmbH on 1 August 2023. He succeeds Roger Christmann, who has been leading the Tanztheater since 2019. Roger Christmann will keep an advisory role as consultant for the Pina Bausch Centre and the Tanztheater Wuppertal. Dr Rolf-Jürgen Köster, Chair of the Supervisory Board, paid tribute to Roger Christmann's work during very difficult times: He led the company through the coronavirus pandemic, dealt with the aftermath of the flooding of the Wuppertal Opera House and was actively involved in the participatory and collaborative process of appointing a new artistic director.
AGENDA
Performances
Wuppertal
2023
Sept 8. 9. 10. 12. 13. 15. 16.
Mariendom Neviges
Liberté Cathédrale
Boris Charmatz
Ticketsale starts at 16.06.2023
Due to the small number of tickets, we invite you to reserve your press-ticket as soon as possible ursula.popp@pina-bausch.de, or by Fon 0049 (0)202 563 6720
Nov 23. 24. 25. 26.
Opernhaus Wuppertal
Club Amour
Café Müller - Pina Bausch
herses, duo - Boris Charmatz
Aatt enen tionon - Boris Charmatz
Ticketsale starts at 21.09.2023
2024
Jan 27. 28. 30. 31. und Feb 2. 3. 4.
Opernhaus Wuppertal
Nelken
Pina Bausch
Ticketsale starts at 01.12.2023
Jun 27. 28. 29. 30.
Opernhaus Wuppertal
Viktor
Ticketsale starts at 02. 05.2024
Touring
2023
Sept 22. 23. 24.
Biennale de la Danse de Lyon
Liberté Cathédrale
Boris Charmatz
Oct 4. 5.
Centre Pompidou-Metz
SOMNOLE
Boris Charmatz
Oct 6. 7. 8.
La Filature, Scène nationale de Mulhouse
Partners: La Filature, Scène nationale de Mulhouse / Théâtre La Coupole, Saint-Louis / Théâtre du Jura with the support of CCN · Ballet de l’Opéra national du Rhin
Vollmond
Pina Bausch
Oct 10. 11.
Teatro Argentina, Rome - Festival Romaeuropa
SOMNOLE
Boris Charmatz
Oct 25. 26.
Zorlu PSM Turkcell Stage, Istanbul
Café Müller
Pina Bausch
Oct 28. 29.
Skirball, New York
SOMNOLE
Boris Charmatz
Dec 1.
La Barcarolle, Saint-Omer
étrangler le temps + boléro 2
Odile Duboc, Boris Charmatz, Emmanuelle Huynh
Dec 14. 15. 16. 18. 19.
Opéra de Lille
Liberté Cathédrale
Boris Charmatz
2024
Jan 9.
L’Empreinte, scène nationale Brive-Tulle
SOMNOLE
Boris Charmatz
Jan 11. 12.
Mille Plateaux, Centre chorégraphique national de La Rochelle, mit La Coursive scène nationale
SOMNOLE
Boris Charmatz
Feb 8. 9. 10.
Le Centquatre, Paris - Festival Les Singulier.es
SOMNOLE
Boris Charmatz
Feb 14. 15. 16. 17. 19. 20. 21. 22.
Sadler’s Wells. London
Nelken (Carnations)
Pina Bausch
Feb 15. 16.
Théâtre Auditorium de Poitiers
SOMNOLE
Boris Charmatz
Mar 7. 8.
Haus der Berliner Festspiele, Berlin
Club Amour
Café Müller - Pina Bausch
herses, duo - Boris Charmatz
Aatt enen tionon - Boris Charmatz
Mar 8. 9.
théâtre.s de la Ville de Luxembourg
10000 gestes
Boris Charmatz
Mar 13. 14. 15.
théâtre.s de la Ville de Luxembourg
Nelken
Pina Bausch
Mar 20. 21.
Le Maillon, Strasbourg
10000 gestes
Boris Charmatz
Mar 22. 23.
Maison de la Culture d’Amiens
Club Amour
Café Müller - Pina Bausch
herses, duo - Boris Charmatz
Aatt enen tionon - Boris Charmatz
Mar 27. 28.
Le phenix, scène nationale Valenciennes, mit Le Gymnase, CDCN Roubaix, in the scope of Festivals Le Grand Bain
Club Amour
Café Müller - Pina Bausch
herses, duo - Boris Charmatz
Aatt enen tionon - Boris Charmatz
Apr 7. 9. 10. 12. 13. 14. 16. 17. 18.
Théâtre du Châtelet, with the Théâtre de la Ville, Paris
Liberté Cathédrale
Boris Charmatz
Apr 23. 24. 26. 27. 28. 30. and Mai 2. 3. 6. 6. 7.
Théâtre de la Ville, Paris
´Sweet Mambo`
Pina Bausch
Apr 27. 28.
Théâtre de la Ville, Paris
A week-end with Boris Charmatz & Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch + Terrain
Infos und Tickets
Partners
The Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch and Terrain are building a Franco-German artistic project under the artistic direction of Boris Charmatz. Terrain is funded by the Ministère de la Culture – DRAC Hauts-de-France and the Région Hauts-de-France. Its associates are the Opéra de Lille, le phénix, scène nationale de Valenciennes pôle européen de création, and the Maison de la Culture d’Amiens – Pôle européen de création et de production. The Tanztheater Wuppertal is funded by the City of Wuppertal and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Further Partners
Pina Bausch Zentrum und Pina Bausch Foundation
Editorial season 23-24
Greetings!
I am writing this editorial to announce the new season, which starts in September... but I mustn’t forget the 182 dancers who took part in our letting-off-free happening on Sonnborner Strasse during Wundertal! Or the incredible number of people who turned out that day! THANK YOU ALL and the incredible crowd that came!
I came here, as you know, to work with the legendary Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, but, on May 21, I realized that I did come to meet ALL OF YOU. To dance together with this unique city, to make it dance, as Pina Bausch knew how to make us dance in our minds and in our, sometimes devastated souls. So that we could meet with each other, professional dancers, dance students, high-school students, actors, amateurs aged 16 to 88, dancing madmen, crazy people dancing who do not count their efforts and throw their bodies into the battle, madwomen who don’t spare their energies and throw their bodies into the battle rush headlong into battle.
Where were we…? For the past several months, we’ve been working on the first new piece by Tanztheater Wuppertal: Liberté Cathédrale. We’re rehearsing at the Neviges Mariendom. As the church organ resonates with the silence within, we go into a trance to the pealing of bells from all over Europe, we sing Beethoven in one breath, as if in apnea hanging on to every note. We can’t wait to welcome you in September in this incredible monument built in 1969. Right afterwards, we’ll be taking the piece on tour for at least two seasons; I believe, however, that premiering it there, on the stone floor of the church, will have a very special resonance.
In November, we suggest Club Amour: an evening centered on desire, sexuality, symbolic and actual nudity... Café Müller is folded into the raw-performance side of my work, along with two “nude” pieces from my repertoire which we are restaging at the Opera house, namely Aatt enen tionon and herses, duo. On that occasion, we will close the evening by letting our bodies run wild: this “club” doesn’t go against our well-rehearsed art but takes responsibility for its need of unnegociable freedom.
We will return in January with a new restaging of Nelken. The piece may well be the company’s masterpiece: it is delicate, difficult to control, and the unforgettable roles of Anne Martin, Lutz Förster, Dominique Mercy… continue to haunt us. I think the company is looking forward to regain the unique troupe spirit that the piece produces, with its stunts and children’s games, security threats and cicada dances before the coming storm.
Viktor will be another major recreation of a Pina Bausch piece. The entire Ensemble, joined by a troupe of older men, will transform an earthen grave into a choreography of body and affect.
In parallel, we will be presenting Café Müller in Istanbul, Vollmond in Mulhouse, and Sweet Mambo in Paris. Club Amour will travel to Valenciennes, Amiens, and Berlin; Nelken to London and Luxembourg; Liberté Cathédrale to Lyon, Lille, and Paris. The program is dense, but the company is solid, beautiful, fortified with its history written in the present.
Last but not least: Terrain is the production structure I founded in France, and with whom I develop my work, particularly in the Hauts-De-France region. Tanztheater Wuppertal and Terrain work together throughout the season, as we have seen during Wundertal. This enables me to forge a strong partnership between the two regions, the two countries, and the two artistic teams. The season’s agenda includes the tour dates of my repertoire, and it is indeed one single joint artistic project that is taking shape as part of this program, with the support of the two complementary institutions Tanztheater Wuppertal, Pina Bausch, Boris Charmatz Terrain: we’re inventing a new “Grund,” a new “Tanzgrund” that will make us all dance beyond reason.
Over the course of the season, we’ll be adding other acts to these performances. But first thing first: in September, an existential choreography in a Brutalist church. COME AND JOIN US!
Boris Charmatz
June 2023
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch Terrain Boris Charmatz
In 1968, the year of the student revolts, the dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch (1940–2009) begins to create her own pieces. When she is appointed as the director of the Wuppertal Ballet in 1973, she renames it “Tanztheater Wuppertal”. Her idea of combining dance and theatre revolutionises dance and makes her an icon of a new form of expressionism. She receives numerous international awards for her work. The company’s repertoire is world famous; to this day her pieces continue to tour all over the world. The Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch has made dance history. In 2023, it celebrates its 50th anniversary.
Repertoire begins with the syllable ‘re-’, which stands for repetition and return. Today we know that cultural memory requires both: an archive, where historical material is preserved, and the periodic recreation, or re-enactment, of what is held in the archive. Memories cannot live on without input from the outside world. For the archive and for Pina Bausch’s pieces this means that what is stored here must also be performed, restaged, exhibited, critically examined and confronted with our present-day reality.
The French dancer and choreographer Boris Charmatz (*1973) has been dedicating himself to this task since the beginning of the 2022/2023 season. His artistic directorship in Wuppertal is opening a new chapter, with him at the helm of a company that represents the personal style of Pina Bausch and still carries her name in its title. It is an unusual, hybrid situation that enables him to bring together several aspects of his work: his creative approach to our modern and postmodern dance heritage, his belief in the power of collectives and his reflections on the body as a carrier and transmitter of memories. For the restaging of Café Müller (1978/2023), Boris Charmatz is working with three casts and is thus making it possible for 18 young dancers to explore an important piece of dance history and bring its archaic characters into the present. “I would love that everyone could dance Café Müller in the future. The entire Tanztheater, the audience, perhaps even me at some point.”
How can movements with their own history be performed by bodies living in the present? Why do we dance? What is the “ground”, or reason, for our dance? “In a world that is constantly changing, in a society that is drifting apart, we have to ‘ground’ ourselves again”, says Boris Charmatz. With his French Association Terrain, he is working on a vision for an institution without roof or walls. Human bodies create a mobile architecture on a green ground. The French philosopher Bruno Latour wrote: “The path to a sheltered past is nothing but a fiction”. One of his last books, a kind of terrestrial manifesto, was entitled “Où atterrir?”, which can be translated as “Where can we land?”. Inspired by Latour’s political passion Boris Charmatz urges us to find new ways of relating to our planet and adapt our lives to its changed ecological conditions.
With the multi-day programme “WUNDERTAL” (2023) and the dance marathon “Wundertal/Sonnborner Straße”, he has succeeded in creating a spectacular launch for a Franco-German future project that will facilitate an open dialogue between the city, its residents and its urban landscape. With Café Müller and WUNDERTAL, Boris Charmatz is building the foundations for the 2023/2024 season, in which the Tanztheater Wuppertal and Terrain will work together to develop new creations. First in line is the long-awaited new ensemble piece Liberté Cathédrale (2023), which will premiere at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Neviges. The unique concrete structure is the magnum opus of the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Gottfried Böhm (1920–2021).
Marietta Piekenbrock march 2023
Liberté Cathédrale
Boris Charmatz
Production credits
choreography: Boris Charmatz
With the Tanztheater Wuppertal Ensemble, and guests (*): Régis Badel*, Emma Barrowman, Dean Biosca, Naomi Brito, Emily Castelli (is permanent member of the company from 2023-24 on) , Ashley Chen, Maria Giovanna Delle Donne, Taylor Drury, Çağdaş Ermiş, Julien Ferranti*, Julien Gallée-Ferré*, Letizia Galloni, Tatiana Julien*, Milan Nowoitnick Kampfer, Simon Le Borgne, Reginald Lefebvre, Johanna Elisa Lemke*, Alexander López Guerra, Nicholas Losada, Julian Stierle, Michael Strecker, Christopher Tandy, Tsai-Wei Tien, Aida Vainieri, Solène Wachter*, Frank Willens (is permanent member of the company from 2023-24 on), Tsai-Chin Yu
organist: Jean-Baptiste Monnot
choreographic assistant: Magali Caillet Gajan
lighting: Yves Godin
costumes: Florence Samain
sound: Olivier Renouf, Phill Niblock, Ludwig van Beethoven...
vocal work: Dalila Khatir
Premiere on September 8, 2023 at the St. Mary´s Cathedral in Neviges / Velbert
production: Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch + Terrain Boris Charmatz, with the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels
coproduction: Théâtre de la Ville – Paris; Maison de la Danse, Lyon / Pôle européen de création, in support of the Biennale de la Danse 2023; Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg with the support of Kunststiftung NRW and steirischer herbst, Graz; Culturgest, Lisbon; Lafayette Anticipations, Paris
St. Mary’s Cathedral Neviges: We would like to thank Abbé Thomas Diradourian and his wonderful team for all their support.
Liberté Cathédrale
Text by Boris Charmatz, March 2023
What’s happening at the moment—between the Tanztheater Wuppertal dancers and myself; between the Brutalist Mariendom church in Neviges and us; between the pipe organ, played at its fullest tone, and our bodies—is all about coming together. We’re working on the freedom to imagine things that wouldn’t have existed if all these “bodies” hadn’t rushed at one another: Tanztheater Wuppertal dancers rushing at other dancers I’ve already worked with, rushing at each other’s idea of freedom and the cathedral, and all these individual sensations rushing at a choreography we’re designing together. For the moment, there’s a kind of canvas in my head. The dancers throw themselves onto it, and it becomes bigger, more alive. It “takes shape.” I have the feeling that you really must be “all these people,” with all these sensibilities coming together, for the piece to happen.
I’m not writing anything down, I just let our voices, the bells, and the silences resonate. The silences. Silence wasn’t really part of the original plan. Yet... this plentiful silence that pulls so many people into churches and temples, the silence that grips us when we read the testimonies of victims of pedophile priests, the silence of all the minutes of silence, we’re still trying to figure out how to choreograph snippets of it. Do we sometimes enter churches just to escape? To escape or to find ourselves? The rustling silence of the place transforms every action into choreography. I remember going to see Die grosse Stille [Into Great Silence], a German film about the monks of La Grande Chartreuse, a French mountain monastery. Their actions, carried out in silence, turn into a strange choreography. The monks spend a week without uttering a word, but then we see them laughing and sledding in their cassocks.
A bit of silence in Liberté Cathédrale... and a lot of music, piercing sounds. Bells, organs, and even vocal chants echoing through the architecture of churches penetrate our bodies and the air. Even the surrounding towns vibrate: the stained-glass windows, the soaring stonework, and the bells “rise above” the church. Sometimes you need to cling to the instinctive idea that the chaos of a pealing bell is a great piece of music to dance to; that there’s a kind of contemporary assembly that may be choreographed to an organ played fortissimo; that freedom and cathedral might go hand in hand. We’re working on five parts: sort of building blocks which, for the moment, are left disconnected.
Opus
We sing in unison, a capella, the entire second movement of Beethoven’s Opus 111. We don’t dance to the music, we incorporate it, making it unrecognizable. The piano sweeps us along, but it’s only the memory of the sonata that makes us sing. It’s unsingable...! In the main moments of this song-and-dance, where the breath is stretched to the maximum, the movement cleaves to the voice, and the dance unfolds as long as there is breath left in our lungs. It’s existential: dancing even as we exhale, dancing even as our bodies are still emitting sound, together.
Bellringing
We launch into a sort of headbanging to the ringing of the bells which blends the sounds of several cities. It’s a trance that never lets up. The sound of the bells straddles music and message, deafening noise and passion—the passion of mourning, the passion of a celebrated love, the passion of chaos, which, to my mind, is expressed in the bellringing, when all the bells resound at the same time, creating a cacophony that I’ve always wanted to choreograph. This part is a real “outburst,” in the sense that the pealing of the bells, in its unstoppable madness, bursts into movements, and, quite literally, blasts us apart: we burst against the bells, ad infinitum! We try to dance with the utmost precision to the complex, merciless rhythms of the bells: chaos is coupled with a precision that keeps us on our toes.
Touching
In the deluge of organ music orchestrated by Phill Niblock, we’re looking for a point of contact, where nothing happens without touching. Is it because of the Covid period, which criminalized contact and kept bodies apart; or Madeleine’s “noli me tangere”; or the washing of feet; or the welcoming of AIDS patients in certain churches...; or simply the pleasure of experiencing the permeability of bodies? The sensation of touch is archaic, like a lot of things in this piece: I touch you, and we are set in motion.
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Starting from a poem by John Donne—“No man is an island / entire of itself...”—we’re looking for intimacy, the proximity of a text almost whispered in one’s ear. What can each dancer do with these lines? We’re also looking for other, secular sources, perhaps the memory of a popular song, which would be part of the path, just as Bosch’s paintings of Saint Anthony or the monsters on the capitals of Romanesque columns are part of artistic and religious history...
Silence
The final part is a bit like an epilogue: that which remains when all has been said, sung, danced, and given. This piece will take us off the beaten path. Our architecture rests on our coming-together in motion. Liberté Cathédrale comes into being in a church near Wuppertal, but we take something away from the Mariendom, where the rehearsals are taking place, only to immediately become something else, whether at an industrial site or an opera house... We even dream of an open-air site where the piece might unfold one day, a “church with no church”! Will we be more or less free there?
Boris Charmatz, March 2023
Club Amour
Concept: Boris Charmatz
In the early filmed versions of Café Müller, it is striking to see desire at work. Bodies seek one another, grope for one another; fingers call out for touch. The life of the theater intersects with the life of the artists. The roles seem to be carved out of thick human relationships. This made me want to present the piece on an evening where love, loves, desire, desires would be the core. I then thought of two pieces in “my” repertoire that also touched on these issues. This is a test: to give the dancers from Tanztheater Wuppertal, who have not yet danced these pieces, the opportunity to confront the rough subtlety of Café Müller, the unrestrained radicality of Aatt enen tionon, as well as to perform a duet from herses (une lente introduction)with bodies tangled with one another in absolute contact. The evening promises to be restless: Purcell meets PJ Harvey, Café Müller’s ageless costumes come together with the nudity of Aatt enen tionon, and all three pieces set Tanztheater Wuppertal 2024 ablaze!
Boris Charmatz, March 2023
Club Amour
Conceived by Boris Charmatz
With the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch Ensemble
Total running time: approx. 2 hrs.
Café Müller (1978)
Stage direction & choreography: Pina Bausch
Set and costume design: Rolf Borzik
Collaboration: Marion Cito, Hans Pop
Music: Henry Purcell
Running time: 40 min.
Aatt enen tionon (1996)
Choreography: Boris Charmatz
Lighting: Yves Godin
Vertical structure: Gilles Touyard
Sound: Hubertus Biermann, Olivier Renouf
Sound materials: PJ Harvey
Running time: 40 min.
herses duo excerpt from herses (une lente introduction) (1997)
Choreography: Boris Charmatz
Lighting: Yves Godin
Music: Stefan Fraunberger
Running time: 15 min.
Club Amour: Production and distribution: Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch + Terrain Boris Charmatz
Dancer and choreographer Boris Charmatz
As a dancer, choreographer and creator of experimental projects such as the ephemeral school Bocal, the Musée de la danse and Terrain, an institution without roof and walls. Boris Charmatz subjects dance to formal constraints which redraw the field of its possibilities.
From 2009 to 2018 Boris Charmatz is the director of the Musée de la danse, Centre chorégraphique national de Rennes et de Bretagne. In January 2019 he launches Terrain, his new structure based in the Region Hauts-de-France.
He is the author of a series of seminal works including Aatt enen tionon (1996), enfant (2011), created for the Avignon Festival’s Cour d’Honneur, – and 10000 gestes (2017). He is the author of several books (Entretenir/à propos d´une danse contemporaine, 2003, together with Isabelle Launay; Je suis une école, 2009), and is as well a dancer and improviser (among others with Odile Duboc, Médéric Collignon, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Tino Sehgal). In 2021, Boris Charmatz developes La Ronde in the framework of the event “Avant-travaux, le Grand Palais invite Boris Charmatz”, and orchestrates Happening Tempête, a performance for 130 dancers, on the occasion of the opening of the Grand Palais Éphémère. In July 2021 he opens the Manchester International Festival with Sea Change, a choreographic work for the public space with150 amateurs and professional dancers which inspired WUNDERTAL / Sonnborner Strasse, presented in May 2023 in Wuppertal. Boris Charmatz is the director of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch since August 2022.
Daniel Siekhaus, currently the managing director of the Wuppertaler Bühnen, will become the managing director of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch GmbH on 1 August 2023. He succeeds Roger Christmann, who has been leading the Tanztheater since 2019. Christmann will stay on in an advisory role as consultant for the Pina Bausch Centre and the Tanztheater Wuppertal. Dr Rolf-Jürgen Köster, Chair of the Supervisory Board, paid tribute to Roger Christmann's work during very difficult times: He led the company through the coronavirus pandemic, dealt with the aftermath of the flooding of the Wuppertal Opera House and was actively involved in the participatory and collaborative process of appointing a new artistic director.
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